Day 31, 1 August 2009, Darwin

Had one of the real high points of the trip on our last day in Darwin. Visited 'Hunter Safari', run by Harry Bowman. Harry is the oldest brother of Jacinta Fleming, whom Pam worked with at Maffra. Harry has a flat-bottomed aluminium boat that holds about 10 passengers. The boat's comfortable, but simple. Besides lunch makings, drinking water, and a bucket (for sanitary purposes) Harry also carries a .357 Magnum. He picked us up at around 9:00 AM and returned us about 4:30 PM.

In between, we travelled up and down a portion of the Adelaide River, visiting dozens of incredible salt water crocodiles. (Salties have salt water glands, hence the name.) They are happy to live and eat in fresh water or, as I've mentioned earlier, in places like the meat department at Coles New World in Katherine.When we'd spot one sunning itself, Harry would cut the engine and cruise over for a closer look. We've got pictures of us within snapping distance of a 5 meter monster. We weren't worried, though, as it was smiling.

Later on in the trip we stopped at a small island in the middle of the river that's a sort of resort. There was a bunch of young blokes there preparing themselves for a bucks' turn scheduled for that night. Staying sober enough to avoid falling in the water would have to be a priority, I would have thought.

Harry noticed people on the back deck of a bigger touring boat, and commented that he believed that no-one was supposed to be there, since a seventy year old man fell off a few weeks ago. He wasn't heard over the noise of the motor, and wasn't missed, must have been by himself, plus the tour manager didn't count.

Harry's son, also a tour operator, found the remains on the side of the river several days later. He rang the police, who must have had trouble hearing him over the screams of the women on his boat. The police told him not to touch anything, or interfere in anyway. Harry's son, deciding the cops were not Territory locals, wisely ignored them, attached a grapel to the belt on the body, told his distressed passengers not to look back, and towed the deceased back to port. He is sure that if he had not acted, the crocs would have finished off the body. We all felt very motivated to comply with any safety rules that Harry could come up with.

Harry also showed us lots of birds, plants and other interesting stuff but the crocs were king.